


Drabbles

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, implied kurodai eyy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:00:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>place to dump hq drabbles.<br/>(<i>The water’s lost its warmth, sends gooseflesh running up the back of his arms as they drop to a porcelain seabed. He’s heavy-eyed and drowsy and Lev’s toothbrush hangs off the lip of the sink, jutting out into open air a lot like Yaku’s spiraling fatigue and—there’s something important about domesticity that bites sharp when a found home’s emptied one half.</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Evidence_

The water’s lost its warmth, sends gooseflesh running up the back of his arms as they drop to a porcelain seabed. He’s heavy-eyed and drowsy and Lev’s toothbrush hangs off the lip of the sink, jutting out into open air a lot like Yaku’s spiraling fatigue and—there’s something important about domesticity that bites sharp when a found home’s emptied one half.

(He wakes with pruned skin when the front door ricochets too-loud off the rubber catch Yaku’d installed just for moments like this: almost-midnight, cold, Lev’s face red as he steadies the offending sports bag. Yaku drips his way into a towel and out the bathroom, says  _welcome home_  through a yawn.)

 

* * *

_"I'm here."_

              

“Where?”

“In front of the ATM-“

“Wait, wait. I see you.”

“…please tell me those aren’t polyester.”

“Ha! Yeah, aren’t they— _oops, sorry_ —aren’t they great?”

“Overalls, Lev. How could you do this to me?”

“You don’t like them? Wait, where are we getting lunch?”

“Yamamoto’s new place. And no, I’m going to burn them as soon as I can.”

“Yaku,  _please_ -“

“They’re green and polyester.  _Why don’t you know better_.”

 

* * *

 

_Funeral_

“I don’t even know if she liked flowers,” Yaku confesses as he sets the posy down onto stone. He says it just quiet enough so that it stays between them and away from his murmuring family behind.

Lev starts to laugh but thinks better and stifles it into the too-short sleeve of his black coat. He says, “It’s the thought that counts,” and catches Yaku by the hand when he stands. A jerk of his head and they’re passing through the remnants of the funeral procession, loosening their ties in the last of summer’s heat.

 

* * *

 

_Puppy Love_

“I was  _fifteen-_ “ Lev’s protesting, waving his arms around, trying to convince his friends he really wasn’t  _so_ -

“A love letter,” Yaku wheezes with tears at the corner of his eyes. Kuroo steps out from his kitchen with more drinks, grinning. Daichi scratches his cheek on the couch across from them and lifts his eyebrows when he and Kuroo make eye contact.

“Are we talking about  _that_ Valentine’s Day?” Kuroo sets the glasses down and sprawls next to Daichi, biting at his thumbnail, wiggling his eyebrows at Lev.

Lev chokes, almost weeping in betrayal. Yaku sniggers into his side where he’s slumped, unable to keep himself upright. He chokes, “He drew _pictures-“_ between gasping breaths and Lev folds his arms, looks away, mouth twitching in its fight against a smile—even he can admit, now, that it’d been…something.

Yaku collects himself when Lev wraps an arm around his shoulders. “I think I actually still have it, now that I think about it,” he tells them, then sneaks a look at Lev’s face. “It really did make me happy, though.”

Daichi bumps Kuroo’s knee where it’s pressed against his own. “You know,” he starts, a lethal glint sparking in his eyes, “This kind of reminds me of that one time Kuroo hired a Mariachi band-“

“Babe, wait, no-“

 

* * *

 

_Gloves_

“We’ll probably have to get some custom made,” Yaku says, hanging the black-suede gloves back on their rack. “Jesus, Lev, why are your hands so  _big_?”

Lev winks at the nearest sales clerk and Yaku kicks him on the shin, hiding a smirk with a scowl.

 

* * *

 

_Soft_

They bed themselves at the very tip of dawn’s rosy fingers. Lev’s legs dangle off the mattress’ edge just enough that his toes’ll get cold in January’s breath. Later, he’ll stuff them under Yaku’s thighs as he reads the morning’s news and hides a smile with the rim of his coffee mug.

 

* * *

 

Boxes

"I’m giving up,” Yaku moans from the floor. “Why didn’t you label any of these?”

Lev considers the wall of boxes before him stacked higher than his head and hums. “I’d already packed my school stuff and didn’t think it was worth it.”

Yaku sighs, wipes his forehead. The room around them’s turned gold and pink with the westering sun’s light. Across the street, a neighbor’s cat meows for dinner.

“It’s not like I really  _need_  my clothes  _now_ ,” Lev tries, sidestepping closer to Yaku, who pats his feet and ankles with halfhearted affection.

“All right.” Yaku uses Lev’s legs to pull himself up into a sitting position. “Here’s the plan: you sleep in what you’re wearing, we share the blanket-“ the  _even though you’re a hog_ goes unspoken but implied, “-and we deal with your poor organizational skills tomorrow.”

Lev grins and wanders into the kitchen, ducking in the doorway so he doesn’t hit his head (like last time). Yaku watches the sunlight slide across the boxes and wonders about change and found homes and what Lev’s eating and if he’s going to share. It’s crunchy and loud and Yaku can’t  _believe_ the human noodle’s not offering him sustenance after his hard work.

“Lev,” he calls, feeling like he’d really like to be spoiled. “Bring me food.”

His “’kay,” drifts back to him muffled and distorted through a mouthful of what turns out to be dry instant noodles. They’re fine enough after he makes Lev cook them, even if they are a little overcooked since they’d gotten—distracted.

Later, they sit on the floor with empty dishes scattered around them. Yaku’s finishing an email to classmates for a group project when Lev bumps his nose against his cheek, pressing closer and closer until Yaku huffs and sets the laptop aside.

“What?” He tries for indignant but only comes up with something like bubbling affection, softness, gladness.

“Mnn.” Lev rests his head on Yaku’s shoulder. “I love you,” he says, and Yaku’s heart swells. “Also, I think we should make a fort out of the boxes-”

 

* * *

_Signature_

The first time it happens is at a home game in the dead of summer. Yaku watches from the stands as Lev’s waved down by a kid who might just be half his height. His silver head ducks down so he can better hear the fan’s request—the gym’s still loud with conversation after their university’s win.

Yaku presses the back of his hand against his smiling mouth as Lev caps the marker and hands it back to its owner with a smile that does something mean to Yaku’s breath.

“I’m famous!” Lev tells him, hands on his shoulders. Yaku laughs and doesn’t disagree—instead, he steals Lev from the locker-room and tows him to a victory dinner at their favorite place.

“Great game, though,” Yaku says when they’re halfway through their meal. The restaurant’s crowded for a Sunday night; they’re shoved at the very back in a low-lit booth whose cushions would’ve looked well-used decades ago.

(“Safe from any determined fans,” Yaku’d said when they sat down, half to keep Lev’s ego as True Ace at a reasonable size and half to see Lev crack that wide grin of his again.)

When the bill comes, Yaku puts the pen on a napkin and slides them before Lev. He says, “I should’ve been the first to ask for it, but,” and smiles.

The pen tears the thin paper and the ink bleeds far but—Yaku folds it and tucks it into his wallet where it’ll stay for years through win and loss and the roar of an audience in an international stadium.

(“Think I should sell this for some money?” he asks, smoothing the wrinkles from the yellowed napkin.

Lev looks up from the gold medal he’s been shining for the past half-hour. “You still-?”

“I still,” Yaku says, teasing. “But I think I’ll hang on to it for a while more.”)


	2. situations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yakulev one(ish) sentence prompts from tumblr

_Tired_.

Lev slips in through the door quieter than ever before, drags his feet through the hall, and wrangles for a short second with his clothes before dropping into bed beside Yaku.

_Back Alley_.

“We have time,” Yaku says, but it’s mostly lost in the skin of Lev’s throat as he drags his hands down, down, and pushes him up against the alley’s faceless wall.

_Sunrise_.

“I’m still cold,” Lev whines, and pulls Yaku down and into his lap as the sun warms the colors of a city horizon.

_Late_.

Yaku’s still tightening the knot around his neck when he trips into the restaurant, all red-face and airless lungs as he checks his pocket for the velvet box again.

_Son_.

Lev peeks up and over the fridge door as his mother and Yaku sit and talk at the table, an old photo-album spread between them and their laughter.

_Hot_.

“I said it wasn’t ready,” Yaku scolds while holding Lev’s hand under running water; self-control doesn’t come easily and the cake smelled so  _good_.

_Friend_.

“She’s a friend,” Yaku explains, tugs the hand he’s holding loosely with his, and watches with a smile as Lev’s eyes lose their dark empty.

_Floor_.

It’s small and the walls are that awkward tan stuck between yellow and brown but the floor’s clean and there’s room enough, at least, for the few things they own.

_Cheat_.

“Lev took money from the bank,” Kenma says, face tucked close to the screen of his phone, and Yaku looks up from the board and his kingdom of hotels and  _glares_.

_Think_.

He’s stuck halfway through the chapter, can’t seem to focus on the text, and Lev walks over and drops his arms around his neck, bumps his nose against the back of it like he’s trying to find a reset button, and Yaku thinks maybe he has.

_Disgust_.

The problem is, the cake would be good if it weren’t more nuts than anything else, and Yaku knows the displeased twist of his mouth is noticeable even through his chipmunk-cheeks.

_Shelter_.

Lev has to bend down so Yaku can pick his hair out of the umbrella’s metal joints, and it’s funny enough that Yaku’s smile leads to a laugh as the rain falls around them.

_Borrow_.

“That’s my jacket,” Lev realizes, only once they’re falling down into the city’s underbelly, and Yaku shrugs as a passing train lifts the hem low on his thighs, calling a flat  _it’s comfortable_ over the squeal of brakes.

_Chair_.

“It was like, ¥500,” Lev argues, the bright in his eyes burning enthusiasm, and Yaku looks at the rusted and slouching frame of the chair, sighs, and flattens his palm over his eyes as he reluctantly nods at the ceiling.

_Alter_.

Sometimes, when it’s quiet and Yaku’s at his desk or curled on the couch, Lev thinks about then and now and how they’re different than before; Yaku has patient hands and kind eyes, and half of his gentleness is hidden in plain sight and the other somewhere further below, but if Lev’s something growing then Yaku’s the trellis around.

_Peace_.

The rain’s blue and grey down the windowpane and the space heater’s growling like something’s gone and taken its food but Lev’s long-limbed sprawl and even breaths lull him easily back into sleep.

_Beach_.

“You said you put on sunscreen,” Yaku hisses, and pokes hard at the reddest patch of skin on Lev’s back when he says, “I  _lied_ , duh.”

_True_.

“I’m not lying this time,” Lev says, pushes his chair away as he stands, but Yaku rolls his eyes, mutters something bitter and cold as he yanks his shoes back on, and the slam of the door after his passing takes all other noises with it.

_Crazy_.

Yaku thinks, sometimes, that there’s a contagious kind of frenzy boiling in the pit of him when he pulls Lev down by the back of his neck.

_Love_.

Winter’s forgotten him, seems like, because its cold leaves his blood and heart alone, leaves the flames in their full-room in his chest, lets their heat lick at all the pieces of him.

_New_.

“The ceiling’s higher in this one,” Yaku calls over his shoulder, and it’s chased soon by a thud as lets the labeled boxes in his arms down. He surveys the open kitchen, hands set on his waist, and eyes Lev as he just-barely clears the door. “Think you’ll outgrow it?”

_Beggar_.

“Sometimes,” Yaku says as Lev watches him hand the cashier his cash, “I think you forget your wallet on purpose.”

_False_.

_I’ll try it again_ , Lev thinks, holds it real close to him, wants to burn it right into his skin so he’ll remember, but the apartment’s still empty, still cold, and  _wrong, wrong, wrong_ is looping at the back of his head on brutal repeat.

_Happy._

Yaku’s hands still on the shirt he’s folding and press into the worn fabric, a washed-out sky-blue cotton weave, and suddenly he notices the spaces around him and how they’re filled with reminders; gladness covers their walls and hums in his bones.

_Pickpocket._

Yaku dips his fingers into Lev’s pockets, quick and deft, and fans the twin tickets out in front of him while Lev splutters. “Oh,” he says, and squints at the fine-print. “We’ll get dinner before.”

_Reverse._

“You’re going to trip,” Yaku warns, but Lev continues walking backwards, long strides eating up the park’s pavement, and Yaku rolls his eyes when he finally falls over a trashcan.

_Deliver._

“Thanks for the… flowers?” Lev asks, voice distant over the phone, and Yaku grumbles  _I hope you haven’t forgotten_ just as someone with an armful of sunflowers knocks at the door of his office. Lev says, a little wryly, a little shyly, “Great minds think alike?”

_Arrival_.

The airport’s loud and Yaku has to weave through a sea of people and their rolling suitcases, but it all falls away as Lev emerges at the top of the escalator, yawns, and spots him first in the crowd.

_Fall_.

“Knew it,” Inouka says, swallows his mouthful of food hard. He throws an arm up and slices down through the restaurant’s warm air with his chopsticks, whistles the sound-effect and turns a few heads. “Saw you falling alllll the way down, Lev.” He grins. “Yaku-san, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder that you can talk to me on [my tumblr](http://saltinies.tumblr.com/ask)


	3. tumblr minifics

ennonoya (ghost-boy au) 

_[things you said at 1 am]_

"An adventure in the park," Ennoshita says, tripping in the tall grass, "Isn't really Ideal at one in the morning, Nishinoya."

Nishinoya laughs like Ennoshita's said something funny and tugs his hand, towing him beneath the wide moon and glittering stars. Wide branches spread above them, leaves whispering words Ennoshita’s not magic enough to understand.

Nishinoya turns his head, listens, and says, “Nah, this is really nice.” Unreality snaps at Ennoshita’s heels—the moon’s too bright, the air too sweet, Nishinoya’s hand too warm to belong to a dead boy. He expects a black cat to twine itself around his feet, to catch and trip his heavy steps, but the night is docile all around them and he’s tired enough to—let it all flow by.

They stop at the edge of a clearing. Nishinoya flops onto his back and pulls at Ennoshita until he sits, too.

“Hey, Chikara,” Nishinoya says after a long pause in which Ennoshita’s gotten sleepy. Ennoshita yawns, face turned up to the sky. “We should play twenty-one questions.”

Ennoshita’s mouth turns down at its corners. “Should we.”

Nishinoya steamrolls. “Movies or TV?” He grins, and Ennoshita snorts.

“You already know the answer.” He pauses, listens again for the world Nishinoya knows so well, hears nothing but wind and a car horn far, far away. An idea comes to him, and he asks, “Life or death?”

“Alive,” Nishinoya says, then, impatiently, “You already knew that. Next question: what would you do if you knew you were going to die in a week?”

There’s a sudden stillness in his breath and body and it unsettles Ennoshita’s inner balance. Nishinoya’s eyes glitter from the shadows cast over his face, but they’re sharper than he remembers and Ennoshita realizes, _ah, so this is why_ —

“I’d rewatch all my favorite movies,” he says. The words fall out of his mouth easily; he’s on autopilot, caught in the true black of Nishinoya’s pupils. An unnamed regret’s digging its grave in his chest. “And eat my favorite things. But I wouldn’t really change anything.”

Nishinoya’s shirt wrinkles when he breathes. Ennoshita wonders if his lungs will crave air, too, when they do not need it.

“Boring,” Nishinoya says, and suddenly he’s himself again. “Wanna know what I did, when I had a week?”

Ennoshita, somehow, hasn’t gotten used to being—friends, maybe—with a dead kid. He tries to think of Nishinoya-things. “Raised hell? Stole a motorcycle?”

Nishinoya shakes his head, laughing like he’s proud of Ennoshita’s character-assessment. “Nah, you see, I didn’t do _anything_ ,” he tells him. “Just carried on like normal and Chikara, let me tell you, it was awful. Worst seven days of my life.”

“Are you telling me I should go wild?” Ennoshita tries to imagine himself not being normal, can’t. He wonders if Nishinoya’s going to dye his hair while he sleeps.

“I’m telling you to enjoy what you have before-” he waves his hands at himself, “-you know.”

Ennoshita’s forehead wrinkles. “I am enjoying what I have,” he says, and, since it’s past one a.m. and the world’s already turned on its head, continues, “I’m here, after all.”

Nishinoya squints a little, then grins so wide Ennoshita winces. “Chikara!” He looks like he’s going to cry.

“Oh, god,” Ennoshita says. “No, wait – I take it back. This is awful, this is the absolute _worst_ -“

Nishinoya springs on him faster than Ennoshita can compute. His arms squeeze around his neck and his forehead bumps painfully against Ennoshita’s when they fall back. For a moment, all he can see is sky and stars and Nishinoya Yuu, seventeen year old ghost boy, over-exuberant reaper, the object of Ennoshita’s hard-won affections, and he thinks, _this might be all I need_.  

 

* * *

 

 

kiyoyachi

_[things you said under the stars and in the grass]_

"I'm very glad," Kiyoko says, face tilted up to the sky, moonlight softening the shadows on her face, "that you're here."

Yachi roots her fingers in summer grass that's still warm from the day. She shrugs one shoulder up beneath her ear to hide a reddening face; there are butterflies winging on hope-borne air in her chest and it heats her cheeks. Car headlights shine toward them from higher on the mountain, bathe their stretched legs in yellow light, and Yachi swallows, says, "M-me, too."

But--she's unsure. Her brain runs its frictionless hamster wheel around and around, sparking something like a frenzied panic. Yachi doesn't know if Kiyoko means literally  _here:_ out behind the gym, or  _here_ : planet Earth, life, the Universe, or even  _here_ : with her. She hopes for all of the above, but she's taken enough tests now to know how rare it really is and--she doesn't have the confidence to bubble it in, to reach and place her hand over Kiyoko's, to weave their fingers together.

"Yachi-chan." Yachi looks up, mouth open, question poised on her tongue. The beautiful curve of Kiyoko's lips is serious. "Do you like anyone?"

Yachi blinks, then breaks into a nervous sweat. Her heart beats frantically in her chest as she blusters, "Ahhh, ahahhh, I--yes. Not a Big Crush, though, ahahh, just, you know..." she trails off into an awkward silence that's quickly broken by Kiyoko's laughter.

(Yachi hears an angels' choir, thinks heavenly light's about to break through the night's thin clouds. She's mortified but enraptured and oh, god, she is so _gay_.)

"I'm sorry--" she starts, but jumps when Kiyoko leans closer, tucks her dark hair behind her ear. 

"Me, too," Kiyoko says, good humor dimpling her cheeks. 

"Of course..." Yachi swallows her disappointment, turning her gaze away. 

"You aren't going to guess who?"

Yachi's heart squeezes painfully. "Who?"

Kiyoko laughs again--it's sweet and pretty and Yachi's breath catches in hope and sugared adoration. 

"...me?" she guesses, small and quiet. Kiyoko smiles.

"You," she confirms, eyes darting back and forth between Yachi's, searching. 

"I--lied," Yachi chokes out, hiding behind her hands. Kiyoko makes a small surprised, curious sound. "It's--a b-big...crush." She whispers, "I'm really  _so_ gay," meaning to keep it to herself, but Kiyoko hears and--an angels' choir plays again behind the boys' gym in the dark night and deep grass when Kiyoko giggles into her palm.

 

* * *

 

 

kenhina 

_[things you said too quietly]_

"I’m awake," he says, too quietly. The blankets Kenma’s pulled up to his face swallow the words, leaving the room in its quiet dark. Hinata’s shoulders rise and fall with his slow breaths, steady and small but still larger than life in a way Kenma’s seen from the beginning. 

The world’s thrown off-kilter just enough that he needs to stretch a hand out and touch Hinata’s back. His cotton shirt is warm beneath the lightest press of his fingers. Here, Hinata is grounding even as the one who’d realigned Earth’s axis to tip Kenma dangerously into sunlight. He thinks of old pixel games, running figures jumping glow-orange pits of lava and thinks, not for the first time, he’d like to fall into the heat, just once.

_[things you said when you thought i was asleep]_

"Kenma," Hinata says, almost too loudly. He leans back in the bed they’re sharing (to ward off monsters of life or dream or their own creation) to stare intently at Kenma’s face. "Are you awake?"

No response. Outside, a tree branch sways in a summer wind. 

Hinata swallows nervously, then confesses, more quietly, “You know, I really like you.” And that’s—the words don’t really feel the same out loud as inside his mind. “More than like. Like, I like Kageyama, but I really like you.” His cheeks burn against his cool pillow. “I think—I don’t know how you’d react if I told you. So I’ll practice now.

"Kenma," he continues, gathering strength not in volume but tone, "I think I love you."

 

* * *

 

 

yakulev

_[things you said at the kitchen table]_

"Good morning," you say, voice rough still with sleep, and set down the coffee mug you’ve drained already. The tile below your bare feet is cool even while bathed with morning’s blue light—everything else, though, is warm; your home resists cold, is built of warmer things, holds the warmest. You know this even if it’s six a.m. and the day’s sun a scant few minutes old.

Lev looks up from the stove, grinning rakish and wide. He hasn’t dressed yet and stands only in his underwear and apron. He says, loudly, inevitably, “I’m making an omelette,” and your nose wrinkles. “I won’t scorch it.” The  _this time_ goes unsaid but implied and you accept it, hold your mug out for more coffee.

There’s some kind of intangible feeling, a tug that tingles up your back, that pulls  _I’m_ really  _in love with you_ out of your mouth on a tidy string when Lev pours the coffee. 

He blinks at you through the heavy steam, slow, and kindles something sweet in your chest as he smiles, says, “Ditto,” like it’s the most romantic line anyone’s ever heard.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> yakulev will Not let me rest i love them sosossoo much FIGHT ME


End file.
